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OFFBEAT

Fraudster plots murder to force lawyer change

A convicted fraudster has turned himself in for planning a murder in order to force a Stockholm court to appoint a new lawyer, news website Nyheter24 reports.

Unhappy with the showing of his court-appointed lawyer in his trial on charges of aggravated fraud and tax offences, the businessman requested that the Svea Court of Appeal (Hovrätten) appoint a new lawyer to represent him in his appeal.

When the court had not responded to his request on Monday the man, who is in his fifties, elected to take the law into his own hands.

In an email to the prosecutor’s office he informed the authorities of his unorthodox plan to commit a murder.

“It seems that it is the Svea Court of Appeal’s opinion that a man charged with fraud lacks the right to change counsel between the legal hearings in the district court and the appeal court,” the man wrote.

“I consider then that I have no alternative but to plan a murder that will take place before Wednesday April 8th.” This is the same day that the man is due in court for his appeal hearing.

The man continued in his email to report the Svea Court of Appeal as complicit in his “plot” as they were “forcing him to plan and execute a murder of a victim as yet unknown to me.”

The man concluded his email by requesting an expedient reply.